Crash (updated)

I watched Crash last night. Wow, I don't know how to express my feelings and reaction. First, it's very very sad, and I don't like sad movies even though I think they are necessary, if you know what I mean. Life has a lot of sadness. And the Academy seems to really like sad movies (for me Crash was sadder than last year's Million Dollar Baby, though - let me confess that I missed the last fight scene, again because the baby was crying, and since it was on TV and not DVD, I couldn't replay it - and neither did I want to).

I really liked the way Crash showed how racism is so insidious in every ethnic group - this issue is not really discussed, it's a taboo in our politically correct society - in this sense I think this movie is truly important. I felt that the ethnicity that was "spared" the most criticism was the Hispanics - my husband and I were talking after we watched it, and he said that that everyone has a good and a bad side in this movie, but I found two exceptions - the hispanic locksmith (he did react explosively once, I concede, but that was it) and the hispanic housekeeper. (I did miss some very short portions of the film because my son was coughing and woke up a couple of times, and I tried to watch them again after, but correct me if I'm wrong). The hispanic police woman "racially attacks" the Chinese one in the very beginning, so I guess not all Hispanics are portrayed in a completely positive light.

Of course the movie has a lot of characters and a very unique way to tell their stories which didn't allow for extremely deep or rounded psychological portrayals of each character, but we did get the basics - these are complex people, with issues going on both in their personal and professional lives.

I was angry several times, so angry I could barely stay seated... The Black couple stopped by the police, the Persian guy beying attacked as a jihadist. And I could barely watch the little girl's scene (Isnt' life so much scarier after we become parents? I found out that filmakers and TV movie writers know really well how to get to us parents and do that very often and skillfully - not to say "appellatively") . There were many many unexpected twists, but I don't want to give the plot away, so I won't say anything about these.

I didn't watch the other Oscar contenders, but I'm really happy that this movie was chosen as best film. It also absolutely deserved best editing and screenplay -- in my humble and very uninformed opinion :)

Well, I'd love to know what anyone else thought of it!!

P.S. I still need to write something about Bride & Prejudice that I watched last weekend. Thanks Chicagomama and Libby for the suggestion!

Edited to add: I wanted to address the issue that my "blogging buddy" Juliet brought up in her comment, which is right on. I didn't feel like doing a full review in the post, so I didn't write about every ethnicity represented, but Asians are definitely under-represented and I agree with the idea that the Chinese characters' "humanity" is not really highlighted - only as regarding physical suffering, I suppose - they are not two dimensional characters either. Thanks for your comment, Juliet. I think you shouldn't see it, it will upset you.

Blogroll Accidentally Erased (now fixed)

I can't believe I just erased most of the blogroll from my template. I was adding a new blog to it and left the template open for a while, then I didn't check what I had done before saving and I just saved and published it. Now it will take me forever to add all the links one by one, I may even forget many of them, and that makes me really sad and upset.

I can't believe I had not saved my template yet somewhere (like my friend Alice had recommended a while back). Of course this needs to be done, just in case an accident like this happens!!! What a waste of time it will be, but I just can't bear not to have my blogroll back...

Well, now I've learned my lesson the hard way and I'm saving this template as soon as I get the links back in.

Updated to Add:
I was able to fix it searching each blog online and adding each manually again, but I think I forgot one or two blogs. I also ended up deleting those blogs which have gone offline and I changed the order slightly. The blogs within each category are (have always been) in alphabetical order, but the categories themselves are not. Of course the template is saved now.

"Dilemmas of a Mama(e) in Translation"

This is the title of my latest "One Family One Language" column at the Bilingual/ Bicultural Family Network (BBFN) newsletter. You can check it out here.

You should also check out the columns of my blogging friends Clo (from Multi Tongue Kids), who writes about the French nanny she shares with another family, and Alice (from Jabberlingual), who shares her doubts about the language development of her children, who are exposed to three languages.

The BBFN is a great resource and the site is getting better everyday. Great work, Corey!

My First "Son" - Blues' Pictures for Lioness

This is my dear "first son" Blues... I thought it was high time I posted more pictures of him in the blog, since he made his appearance here only once, and then in competition with my beautiful morning glories. The Lioness recently told me that he looks like her cat, and I wanted to share more pictures with her, so here you go!

We got him as a tiny kitten back in April 2001, two months after we bought a house. I had longed to have a cat forever here in the U.S., but only got to have one when we had our own place since the apartment buildings we lived in previously didn't allow pets. I adore cats and I was fortunate enough to marry another cat lover (that's one of the reasons I married him, to be sure :) and nobody here at home has cat alergies, what a relief!! (I have friends who do and it has even prevented some of them from visiting altogether, since the cat allergy is awful!).

The pictures are from 2003 (July, September and October) and 2004 (February) - we got a digital camera in June 2003. Of course I have many pictures from before, but they're "regular" ones that I haven't scanned yet. Blues even has his own photo scrapbook, which also contains pictures of my previous cats and my aunts' cats... In the outdoor pictures I posted he had a harness because we lived in a condo that didn't allow pets outside, so we'd always bring him out in a harness and leash. Isn't he cute? He likes to relax laying in his back with feet in the air, and he lets me pet his belly! I'll post some other pictures at another time, OK?

Four Years Ago - Just the First Paragraph

Four Years ago today, my first baby was 1 month and 2 days old, and this was the day, the happy happy day in which he was able to latch on and really breastfeed for the first time since his first week of life. It was only then that I was able to (in two days) to stop pumping for good. It was only then that I began to enjoy being a mother fully. This day and the month that preceded it changed my life profoundly and transformed me into a fervent lactivist. Because of my experience, I just melt into tears and feel utterly devastated just thinking about other mothers' difficulty and failure to breastfeed -- I want to help them badly, and I do try to help any new mother I know. I really wish I could become a (certified) lactation consultant,* but right now I'm happy with participating of the LLL (La Leche League).

~~~ ~~~

I wanted to share the whole story, but today it won't be possible. My husband arrived from Brazil this morning (he had a good trip). We got to spend the day together and went to lovely Longwood Gardens in the afternoon. It was heavenly! I will post pictures later, both here and in Flickr. Oh, yeah, and I never told you that we did get to go to D.C. two Sundays ago (on April 2nd) to see the Cherry Blossoms, and I owe you photos of that as well. They'll be coming, I promise. And new thoughts about Brazil and how I kind of feel like I don't really want to go back, at least not now...

But I need to rest. My nights aren't easy - the 22 month old still nurses a few times and has been waking up at 5-6 am, and it takes me a while to get him to sleep again. Today I just got up before 7, because I knew that hubby would call me anyway (he didn't call until 8:40) - and I had gone to bed almost at 1 (as I do most nights). So I'm really tired.

* Oh yeah, I could do that if I don't get the academic job :-) This is serious, though, and not a joke, I really wanted to, but I guess it would be a hassle because I'm not a nurse, or doctor, or social worker...

Reflecting

Thank you for the kind words of support that those who commented gave me.

I felt pretty bad about yesterday's post for the last 24 hours, but I guess I'm OK with it now. My feelings varied widely -- I went from feeling ashamed, stupid, and immature, just like I said I shouldn't be, to being angry and upset again. Then I felt anxious that maybe I shouldn't have written this, and the next minute frustrated because I actually wished more people could read what I wrote, that I thought I had some valid points, and then I ended up feeling stupid for thinking such a thing -- for who am I? just a nobody-ABD, and Does it matter, in the grand scheme of things, what I think?

I mean, the point here is not really my writing or this dissertation, which I am certainly going to finish, though it may have seemed that way. The problem is deeper and will probably not go away once I'm done (OK, maybe it someday it may if, by any chance in the universe, I do get an academic job). The problem is rooted in my ambivalent, complex feelings about academia in general. Most of the time I'm just numb to them, and almost forget that they exist, but since I went back to work on the dissertation, these feelings are back, sometimes with a vengeance like yesterday.

What I feel now goes like this: I may not be the smartest "Ph.D.-to-be" that ever existed, and I'm probably among the less smart, but, I have concluded that having these ambivalent feelings and a natural reluctance to conform (I've always been quite rebelious, though only intellectually, not in my outward appearance or demeanor) will benefit me and help me be a better academic if I ever do become one. OK, I know I am one, but an unpaid academic, and if this is what it amounts to - if I can only be an academic without being paid, then I'll probably quit.

OK, I'm just too random today, so I'll stop. I was supposed to write about something else entirely today, and I'll write another post about it shortly. Not that anyone will read this anyway (I am a defeatist as well, and a whiner, if you haven't already noticed). Sorry, but that's who I am. Oh yeah, and I probably should have kept on writing about Jane Austen and flowers, shouldn't I? ;-)

Why? What's the Use? (updated)

I keep a dissertation journal to help me work through the issues I have from time to time. Perhaps that's why I don't write much about the dissertation in the blog (even though sometimes I don't write in the journal very often either).

I know not many academic folks read this blog (or not many people at all, I should add), but I wanted to share my latest dissertation journal entry here. There's a bit of "screaming" in this post, and I apologize for that, but I really feel down right now with this whole dissertation thing. I know it's partly the fact that I can't ever take feedback well, but it's deeper than that, you'll see.
~~~ ~~~
It’s sad to write this entry since the very last thing I wrote in this journal a week ago is a big problem for me today: “I don’t want to write what anyone wants to hear, I want to write what I want!!!!!”

Problem is… they’re probably right. I just received a review of chapter 2 yesterday by email from the Brazilian Professor and she emphasizes again that I should be using my own words, making the work of others work FOR ME and not the other way around (not my work be shaped by other people’s work)…

BIG PROBLEM… it’s funny that education or academic life goes like this – you spend years and years learning to absorb other people’s thoughts which make it harder and harder for one to think by oneself and then when you’re in graduate school all of a sudden you need to be original, to have your own ideas and criticize everyone else’s!!!! I have a hard time with that! Especially because I HATE THEORY! I hate having to talk about ideas, I like FACTS. I guess I am in a completely wrong line of work though, academic life is probably NOT for me, and I’m SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But I have to finish this stuff no matter what. And the most tragic thing is that when I’m done I’m afraid that I just won’t enjoy it too much anymore. I will have been stretched and strained to such a degree that I won’t want to continue, I fear. Especially if I don’t get an academic job, which I think I won’t (I assure you I’ll be a happy stay at home mom, my oldest son looks like someone who would actually enjoy home schooling – we were talking about that the other day).

What’s the use of being an expert in something? What’s the use of having a stupid Ph.D. in something only a few thousand people among the billions of people on earth are interested in? What’s the USE??? These questions are anguishing questions and I’m positive the answers people may offer won’t satisfy me. Sure, I do have a thirst to know and to learn, I love books, I love working with the data part in the dissertation, but ultimately, will this research do any good? Will it ever be read by anyone else but my committee and a handful of specialists? Even if it does get published in a book, who reads academic books anyway? A few thousand people at most?

What’s the USE? Why spend so much time and energy in something? WHY?

What’s the use of knowing or making a Herculean effort to learn this "second language" that is academic writing? I am NOT fluent in it, I should add, it’s with great effort that I can make myself sound a little bit like other academics, though it’s slowly growing on me and probably “mangling” my writing skills forever. (This is probably not that bad, I guess :-)

I hope I feel better soon, but right now I’m utterly overwhelmed by the thought of rewriting my 65 page chapter and having been urged to “write in my own words” to avoid citing too much, to “use other people’s work for my benefit” and stuff. I just wish I had never started this, but now I have to finish.

Why has everything in my life to be like that? Is it entirely my fault? It was the same thing with my piano conservatory “degree” (it’s the equivalent of a high school diploma in piano and music). I only finished because I had to, because my mom urged me to keep going. It was OK to finish, but what’s the use to have gone for so long if I can’t really play well, if I don’t have the talent? I’m sure I have much more talent for academic life than for piano, there’s no doubt whatsoever about that, but I HATE, I LOATHE the fact that if I want to succeed I need to write a certain way, I need to fit in, which for me feels almost like “sucking up” to people. I don’t like it, I resist it, and when things don’t “come naturally” to me, I just don’t like to do it.

Perhaps I'm just too stubborn, but the fact is, I value who I am and what little abilities I do have and if they're not enough in academia well, then I don't want to be an academic!! (This sounds very childish and immature, but it is what I truly feel, at the "height" of my almost 35 years – perhaps life will teach me otherwise, since I'm comparatively young).
~~~ ~~~
Well, this “storm” probably will pass, but I still think those “why” and “what’s the use” questions will remain, as well as my stupid stubbornness and pride if that's what my problem consists of. I should have read Invisible Adjunct well before I was an ABD, not just after I had become one. Of course the year during which she blogged was exactly the one that led to my full-fledged ABD status, and I only discovered her after she had already stopped blogging. I wonder how her life is now.

Updated to respond to ABD Mom's great comment to this post.

I guess I can say that up to a certain point I am venting here. Of course I do want to finish and I will -- I am too far down this path to turn back right now and I'm not that childish or immature to do such an impulsive thing. I do feel, however, truly frustrated by many aspects of academic life. I definitely see it as a kind of "private club" that it's very hard to get in. My husband tied with the first place guy in Brazil, but that person already worked at that university (this happens pretty often in Brazil - they need to open a public and supposedly fair competition for a position, but there's someone already waiting to get the job) - I know it's not like that here in this country, but it's still so absurdly competitive!! (the first job my husband applied to had 250 applicants, and the last one, in the school I almost got an interview, there were 150 - for a crappy teaching job with no research and he's in the sciences!!!). I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that I won't get a job...

Sure, I'm doing this Ph.D. for myself, I've always liked to study, etc... even though I had to change my dissertation subject for this one which I'm very interested in but was not my first choice, because if I didn't switch advisors I knew I'd never finish. My school's not that great, you know, the profs are overworked and have to advise tons of students...

The two articles from by Thomas H. Benton in the the Chronicle and that Invisible Adjunct linked to that I read in July 2004 just left me quite discouraged and the strong feelings I had when I read them have never left me - only the really, really bright people should go on to the Ph.D. and I probably am not one of those! If I were I probably wouldn't have such a hard time finding a voice and critiquing famous theorists and using other people's ideas to further my own point!! And if I'm not one of them I can only get a job as another "invisible adjunct." What's the use of a Ph.D. in this case? I really wish other big shot academic bloggers could add their 2 cents to this discussion.

The State of the Dissertation - Update #5

You probably noticed that I am avoiding the subject, even though it's what my life revolves around daily -- but you might not be able to tell that from reading the blog, at least not lately.

I got some more feedback today, this time from the professor from Brazil who's so graciously being a reader in spite of the fact that she probably won't be at the defense (because I simply won't be able to defend by late June - that's when she'll be in North America). She's helping me a lot, giving me advice about structure and content, things that my advisor hardly ever touches on. I will just have to rewrite a whole chapter though, which is 65 pages long and took ages to get written. Of course I don't need to change everything, but ideally, I should. It's such a daunting task, though, one that leaves me paralyzed with fear.

One of the reasons I have not wanted to write about the dissertation lately is the guilt I felt about "wasting" 3/4 of the month of March. I spent two weeks working on the conference paper and then one week writing a paper for publication (which is much needed to improve my CV, I should say). I have resumed working in earnest and was able to add 10 pages to chapter 3 last week. I'm still very excited about the work I'm doing and I want it to continue like that, that's why I'm so reluctant to "embrace" the feedback I get - I don't want to "loath" my dissertation because then I fear it will be too hard to finish.

You can't imagine the pressure I feel from my parents. They were so hoping I would be able to defend before they went back to Brazil! I'm not that pressed for time though because I have decided to remain a student for one more year so I have the professional affiliation to go on the market in the fall. Even if I defended this summer I wouldn't submit the dissertation to the graduate school just yet. Another positive thing is that with our in-laws here if I need help for a few days - to defend or to finish, we can probably count on them.

Anyway... I wanted "to deliver" for my parents' sake as well. I can't talk about blogs and blogging with my mom because she goes crazy thinking that I'm just waiting all this time when I should be working. As if I could possibly work for 8-9 hours straight every day!

This post is a bunch of random ideas and I don't like that too much, but I just have to speak my mind a bit and try to keep things moving. ABDmom always says that blogging about the dissertation helps her to "hold accountable" to the readers and keeps her on track. I'm hoping to write more often about my struggle as an ABD and see if it helps more. I'm trying to read more academic and ABD blogs so I feel more motivated knowing that I'm not alone, since I tend to focus more on blogs and blogging about personal life as I have said before here (in a nutshell, the first blog I read was Invisible Adjunct and even though I enjoyed and read her thoughts on academia I preferred to focus on her personal posts - this is a perfect metaphor for my life, I enjoy working on the dissertation and academic stuff, but my true interest lies in concentrating on my personal life, my kids, making friends, etc - and you can tell this from reading the blog).

All right, enough said. I will try to go to bed before midnight for the first time in what, a week? I'm a night owl, I love to be up really late, but I can't get used to it since after my parents return to Brazil I have to be up at 7 with the boys. When are they going to let me sleep in? Never? I wonder that every day of my life.

Sixteen Years Ago Today - Continued

*edited a year later to correct some minor errors*

April 7, 1990. Saturday.

The week since the previous Friday, that unforgettable March 30, the day I met "him," was a time of discovery. It was not like the other times when I had simply fallen head over heels for a guy, it was much more "rational." Instead of floating away in the clouds I felt myself stepping on firmer and steadier ground. It was different.

We got to talk a lot, since we came back together from the university on the bus twice that week. The first time I was not expecting him and he surprised me at the bus stop, it was so cute! I went once to the elementary school during recess on purpose to see him (he was a math teacher then, his first year, his first two months, to be more exact), and when the weekend came we got to spend more time together and talk on Friday night and Saturday. I didn't write much about the the talking last time, but it was amazing... I mean, we just talked and talked about so many things and the conversation was so enriching, entrancing, even. I remember that on that March 30 we talked about the experience of going to the university and how that opened us up to the world, to life and its possibilities. Both of us had a very similar sheltered upbringing and we were amazed at how at ease we felt at the university.

When we talked, nothing mattered much, at least not those superficial things I used to pay attention before on cute guys - clothes they were wearing, hairstyle, etc. All I could see was his face and think about our words that communicated ideas, thoughts, feelings, impressions, and it definitely felt like we had so much to say to each other that all the time in the world would not be enough for it! (oh... how aware I am of that problem with time now that we have two kids! Now I really long for trips in the car so we can talk again uninterrupted for a few hours... [we're lucky that the boys are great on car trips]).

On that Saturday night we went to the school where he and my parents worked (a boarding academy and college) because they usually showed movies, but not on that night, so he walked me back home and we listened to my favorite tapes (we didn't have CDs yet back then). When it was time for him to go to his aunt's home I walked to the gate and he said that he really enjoyed spending time with me and whether I'd like to "officialize" our relationship* (i.e. be his girlfriend/ date him - namorar in Portuguese. ), and I answered without hesitation "Sure!!" ("Claro!").

I was reminded of that "sure" tonight when we were talking online and he asked our oldest son, whether he loved daddy, and our son gave the same response in a lively voice: "Sure!"/ "Claro!" And I thought, oh, yeah, you're your mama's son all right!

I guess now I need to pause my lovely story to explain that in Brazil it used to be that the hard thing to do was to ask to namorar (loosely translated as to date but not with the same meaning, since namorar implies a commitment, a more serious relationship), and there was never a formal marriage proposal. The way it worked there was that after the couple had been "dating" (namorando) for a while, they usually knew when they wanted to get married Then, there was a formal engagement party for the families (usually just parents and siblings on each side) when they exchanged their chosen wedding bands, only on the right hand instead of on the left. Then, a year or so later, they were married. That's how it was for me, but it is changing now [people are planning fancy ways of popping the question, which do not include families, just the couple -- although they still use the wedding band on the right hand] , of course, since all many Brazilians want to do is to imitate "the American way" :-)

What I didn't mention that took place that week and that was very meaningful, was that my mother found out that his aunt (less than two years younger then him) -- who had been my mom's secretary the year before -- had actually tried to set us up! She and her sister (his older aunt) were going to try to make us meet some time, and had even mentioned about me to him (he didn't know who I was, though, just that I was his aunt's teacher's daughter). I was amazed to discover that we had managed to meet on our own, without any interference, because I'm sure that it would have been a very awkward situation if we had been formally introduced to each other in that context. I was thankful for the way we met, and surprised that even though I had never heard of this guy before or seen him in my life, his aunts were already thinking that we were meant for each other! And they were right!

So here you have it. April 7 has always been a special day for us, our anniversary, the first, the "true" one. I do value our wedding anniversary, but March 30 - the day we met, and April 7 - the day we became a couple, are special days for me. I'm sorry that we have to be apart today, but at least I can share this story and record it "for posterity" here in the blog.

I said this post was a "continuation" and not an epilogue, so maybe I'll write more things about that "first year of the rest of our lives" together at another opportunity :-)

-> Next week there's the promised sequel to the birth story of March 9. Oh, I meant to put an old photo of us in this post, I'll add it later, OK?

* He literally said "Você gostaria de oficializar nosso relacionamento ?" -- that's so much like him, he always enjoys saying things differently, out of the box. (comment added on 4/7/07, one year later).

Global Warming and Immigration

I usually don't get political here -- and it's not that I don't have political views worth discussing, it's just that I don't like discussing and or arguing about politics and pretty much anything else (another reason why I sometimes write about "mommy wars" but don't expose too much of my own attachment parenting position here in the blog for fear of getting "in" the war). I understand that most people whose blog I read and who read my blog probably have a similar political view as myself and moreover, since I am a foreigner, I guess my criticisms of this country could be "discounted" because I'm not really an insider.

Anyway... I have decided to speak up about these two topics that are some of the hottest on the news lately. They were on the cover of the last two issues of Time magazine, which we happen to subscribe to -- mostly because it's my only way to keep up with the news since I don't like to read news online and we don't watch television (I wish I could watch at least BBC news every night, but I really don't like to watch television with the kids around. When I'm driving I listen to NPR/WHYY and enjoy it very much, but since my parents got here, I basically don't get out of the house anymore).

I've always been concerned about global warming issues and felt irritated about the fact that the U.S. has refused to participate in worldwide initiatives to help prevent further damage to the ozone layer, etc... I was not very alarmed until last year's hurricane season proved that global warning and its consequences for the weather are of immediate concern. My brother told me something last night that left me even more concerned. We usually joke that Brazil is definitely a "blessed" country because we have no volcanoes, no snow, no earthquakes, no tornadoes, no hurricanes... well, not anymore. Last year there was a hurricane in the region my in-laws live (Santa Catarina, around Florianopolis) - a coastal region. And last Thursday, out of the blue, there was a mini-hurricane in my brother's town, Piracicaba in the state of Sao Paulo, a town which is well in-land. Two huge trees fell on the building he works on, he saw the roof being torn off and rain falling in his office. He thought he was going to die, really. I asked why he didn't go under the desk, and he said he doesn't know, he just stood there transfixed, looking at the sky and thinking where he would run to if another tree fell on the roof. The damage was not that bad, the computers were saved and just the floors were flooded, because the water tank (those stay in the attics in Brazil) broke. Over 30 cars were completely destroyed by trees falling on them all over town, including 10 in the campus of the university where he works (which is beautiful and very wooded, since it's the school of agriculture and forestry). Had he parked his car (actually my parents' car - my husband is using my brother's because it has power steering, which is better for his still recovering left hand) on his usual parking spot in the shade, the car would have been crashed, but he had parked right by the office, so the car didn't get even a scratch. The bad part is the the car insurance would not pay for such a damage. My brother's mother-in-law happened to be in town that day and was walking to her mother's nursery home, all through the storm! Fortunately she didn't panic and was able to keep walking, she was drenched but unharmed. I can't even imagine what this next hurricane season will bring... and what other climate changes will start happening very fast in the next few years. (For a post exploring many serious issues on this subject you should turn to Jo-stradamus at Leery Polyp :-)

~~~ ~~~

Now on to immigration. I don't even know where to start. I guess what I wanted to say here is that I know personally lots and lots of people who some consider "criminals" because they crossed the border and came into this country. Whole families, little children, hard working people. There was a time one of my best friends in the world was one of them as well as her husband (she has now returned to Brazil with her two American born children who are exactly the same age as mine). I've known these people since I came to the U.S. in 1996, and even before, when I visited in 1993 because I have often visited and attended Brazilian churches. While I was never comfortable with the fact they people do have to lie in order to keep on living here and while in my first 8 years in this country I had scarcely met anyone who had come here through Mexico (all my friends and acquaintances had tourist visas and had simply come and stayed), since I moved to PA I have met more and more people whose trajectory to this country was a dangerous and extremely expensive one.

Believe me, I didn't want to hear their stories, I didn't even want to think of how it would feel to be away from both of my children for almost a year, working hard to be able to pay for them to come, and then to have the courage to let them come and cross the border, with a relative or a friend, one by one, the seven year old, the three year old. I shudder just thinking about it. Can you imagine your three year old girl coming through Mexico with your sister-in-law? But these are my friends, they are people from my country. I even can't bear to hear their stories first-hand. My husband and my parents have heard them and told me, I just can't imagine what they went through. Just to be here in this country, and there's work for them, plenty of work, that's why they keep coming.

I don't want to discuss the whys and wherefores, the effects to the economy, the pros and cons of different legislature, nothing of that. I just want to say that I know these people, I try to help them, even, when we meet every week. Their situation is so abismally different from mine, the foreign student* who can go to Brazil and come back at will, who can speak and write English, who owns a home. Some of my friends haven't seen their families, their wives, their children, for many years, and while I do question their motives for this sad separation, I know they feel they have more of a chance to work and help their families being here. I don't even know how to end, this is long enough already, but I just feel depressed thinking about my friends sometimes. It would be nice if those who have been working hard for years and paying their taxes could be able to regularize their situation. What about the others, would they be considered as criminals?

* It did get much tougher to be a foreign student after 9/11 (and what's my fault in being a foreing student even if several of the hijackers had student visas?) , but that's another story.

Verdict

My mother-in-law just called me on skype to let me know my husband almost passed but didn't. He was tied with another guy in first place, but then they decided for the other. I'm relieved because I don't know if I would have wanted to go back right now, and also because it's good to know that he is competitive after all, and almost got the job.

I'll be back later with a more "political" post.

Suspense

Tomorrow my husband will know whether he passed the concurso or not (for a teaching position in Brazil). I'm starting to get nervous. What if he passes? We'll have to go back! What about my sons' English? (I mean, I'm not really worried about that - with two uncles in the U.S. we can always send them to live here for a while when they're older and then they'll "finish learning" the language)... Anyway. I want to keep this short, and I'll post as soon as I hear the news. I will have some tough 12 hours or so ahead of me - luckily most of them will be spent sleeping! :-)

Of Academic Conferences and Academic Mothers

Academic conferences and academic mothers are two topics near and dear to my heart, and they happen to come together nicely in this post :-)

It's been over a week since the conference, but I want to write about it before all the impressions fade from my memory.

It's so invigorating to go to conferences! Even if I'm not presenting, I come back home motivated to do scholarly work, to research, to write papers. This time was no different - in fact, it was even more motivating than usual because I have been away from campus for 1 year 9 months and I haven't presented at a conference since 2003! ). When I went to the MLA in December 2004 I came home and started working on a paper right away (too bad it was rejected); this time, I also had a paper to write (one that I know will be published, though :-) and I worked on it quickly and effectively last week.

This particular conference was one of the best I've ever been to because there were four other people from my department (and one faculty member) and I spent all of Friday and Saturday in the company of two good friends. They gave me support when I presented on Friday morning (it was a great success, I must say), and I supported one of them who was presenting. The presenter is a woman I respect a lot, both for her scholarly work and the fact that she also gave birth to two children while pursuing her Ph.D. She was literally a great inspiration for me -- I met her sometime in 1999 or 2000, I think, when her daughter was 3 months old. She told me that she had done her comprehensive exams while 6 months pregnant and that everything had turned out fine, hearing her experience gave me conficence that I could probably do the same. She went to France with her family for a few years and we met again at a conference (of course!) in Belgium when I was 6 months pregnant. I went on to do my comps when I was in my 8th month -- the oral exam was only 10 days before my son's birth -- and when I saw her again in 2004 (at yet another conference in our university), she was back in the U.S., had given birth to her second daughter (9 months old at the time), and I was about to give birth again in a month! By now she has completed the Ph.D. and is getting another master's (this time in my graduate program).

The other person I hung out with is a new student in my program with whom I had already exchanged emails, but who I first met at the conference. He is also Brazilian and is interested in some of the same authors I am working with (yay!). Obviously, he was a little annoyed with the two moms talking about her kids and teased us about it, but we also talked about Brazilian literature and other topics (like department gossip, for example! ;-). We went to several exciting panels together, and it was a great experience!

I also got to see two other colleagues, one who has known my oldest son since he was a baby (she would come to my office hours only to see him during his first year) and another one who entered the program the very semester I moved away, but who bonded with me because she had a baby in April and mine was born in May. I'll never forget the day we first met -- her son was 3 days old and there she was, attending a conference with her mom and baby in tow. I never saw anyone so motivated!! Then, in my last month of pregnancy I saw her and the baby several times as we both worked together at the university - she in her papers, me in the dissertation. I felt sad that I didn't get to see her son and she didn't see mine, but hopefully when I go to the university in May we'll get to see each other's kids! (and my other friend's girls as well).

It's so funny because I had originally set out to write about the conference itself, the thoughts I had about various academic-related issues (e.g. how you can tell just by listening to the presenters, among the grad students, who are those who will more succeed in the job market, which professors are on top of their games and which are not, things like that), but then I concentrated on writing about our experiences as mothers in academia!

And I'm not done yet! My friend's seminar (or panel) organizer was someone I had already met and briefly talked to at the MLA in 2004, and I was really excited to talk to her because she just started her tenure-track job last year. She's from Portugal and studies Brazilian literature as well, and she's really brilliant (she's working on a fascinating book which compares Russian and Brazilian authors). I got to talk to her both on Friday and on Saturday, but we talked most about... yes, you guessed it, kids, and being mothers. She was carrying a breast pump because her daughter is only 9 months old, and she was interested in any suggestions I might have about Brazilian children's literature, since she has a 6 year old daughter. I brought some of my favorite books to show her on Saturday, and she enjoyed it.

What did I miss the most during this conference? Not being able to talk about blogging with my friends and acquaintances... In the very same weekend Jo(e) was at a conference too, and I felt pretty jealous that she got to hang out with other bloggers and do some pretty wild conference blogging stuff ;-) One day when I am a "grown up" academic and get to stay at conference venues and not have to drive back and forth for over an hour, then I will really enjoy conferences fully. For now, I'm still just an "aspiring academic" and a mother of two little boys... and what I value most (as I have already insightfully commented* on a previous post) is being a mother. Hopefully I can be good at both, if not now, someday perhaps.

* why can't I be more modest? :-)

Oh Jane, dear dear Jane...

I'm in a state of grace right now (and I hope this expression means the same in English as it does in Portuguese). I have just seen the latest version of Pride and Prejudice and now you'll have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a side of me that you may not have known, but perhaps just suspected - I am a true Janeite. There, I've said it. A quite fervent one, as a matter of fact! This will come as no surprise for my dear blogging buddy Alice, who wrote a lovely post about Jane Austen last January, in which I included a comment "outing" myself.

I read Pride and Prejudice in my 19th century English literature survey course in college, but it was not until I came to the U.S. a few years later that I had the chance (and the time, for that matter) to read all her other books. My favorite is Persuasion (both the book and the screen adaptation even though the last film is very close favorite now). I have enjoyed the movies and miniseries immensely, and browsed through this book which I very much wanted to buy and just included in my Amazon wish list :) There are other, such as this and that one which I did not know about (and which are a year or two older than the first).

Some words about the other "recent" screen adaptations, if you will...
I enjoyed Sense and Sensibility (Kate Winslet's hair does look ridiculous in that cover, though!) and Emma, and Jane Austen's Emma as well the earlier Emma inspired Clueless. In terms of faithfulness, though, the BBC's Pride and Prejudice could not (and perhaps can't) be rivaled (even if it adds the wet shirt Darcy, but maybe because of that ;). Unfortunately (now, not then), my husband bought it for me as soon as it came out on DVD back in 1999 (he paid 50 dollars for it!) It was a lovely birthday present, but now my copy doesn't have any special features like the one that was released in 2001. I enjoyed Mansfield Park even though my friend hated it because it is her favorite novel and she felt it was changed beyond repair (I hope you're reading this, Nelia, I'd love to know what you think of the latest movie!). Of course I've already said it, but Persuasion is my favorite movie adaptation, though it took forever to be released in video/DVD (and when it first did it had a hideous "fake" cover, I guess they just thought the real actors were just too plain looking and pictured this gorgeous couple in what looked like a romance novel cover - argh! I wish I could find it online, you wouldn't believe it!). I watched it on TV, taped it and kept watching it over and over again. I own the DVD for Mansfield Park and just got the Persuasion DVD last Christmas (thanks, honey!). I gave away my VHS tapes of S&S and Emma hoping to buy the DVDs, but haven't gotten them yet.

Now... back to the most recent movie. I adore it! And I am the most critical viewer of book adaptations you can possibly find, one of those who gets absolutely mad if they change or add anything. I just couldn't resist it, though... I mean, how can you "argue" with the film-maker over small changes when he has the proposal scene on a rain filled day under a beatiful collonade? Or the mirror-beholding while receiving the letter, or the foggy morning of the last scene. I guess they had me at the cinematography (we call, or used to call it photography in Portuguese for some reason). One of my favorite scenes in the mini-series, the Catherine de Bourg-Elizabeth confrontation does come across a bit off with a night setting, but "Dame" Judy Dench does not disappoint (why should she?). Well... enough said. Go see it right now, and don't forget to let me know what you think!

P.S. I almost forgot one of the most relevant things! My husband has seen all the movies with me and he also likes Persuasion best, but I was never successful in convincing him to watch the BBC P&P mini-series, so now I can finally "introduce him" to P&P, Jane Austen's most popular book!! And last but no least, now I know what I want for my birthday :)

Sixteen Years Ago Today

It feels like even longer, but it's been "only" sixteen years...

I was almost 19 then (my birthday is in July), I had just started college at the largest university in Brazil, Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and for the first time in my life I was going to school comparatively far from home and on my own. I took an overcrowded public bus every morning and it took me almost two hours to get there, the trip back was shorter and less crowded.

One early afternoon (my classes were only in the morning) I was at the bus stop waiting for the bus to go home, and while I waited I was people-watching as usual. After taking the bus for one month at the same stop roughly at the same time each day I was already familiar with most people who were there. Someone new showed up that day though, and he was cute. Wearing glasses and clutching a blue duffel bag one one hand and a booklet on the other, he was busy studying while waiting for the bus. Hmmm, I thought, he must go to the same university I go to. I also thought he was very serious and that I loved guys with glasses.

My bus came and I was the first one to get in, so I was rewarded with the only empty seat available. I was surprised to see him getting on the same bus, and I stared at him from my seat in the back as he continued to read his booklet while standing up on the bus. He blushed a few times. Before my stop, when the bus was already half empty and he was seated, I got up and walked towards the front. It was then that I realized that my friend had also boarded the same bus and I started talking to her - this made me less shy and as he got up I asked whether he went to college at USP (which he did, as a physics major) and we introduced ourselves. As it turned out we were getting off at the same stop because he had just started teaching in the same school where my parents worked. We saw each other later that same day and had a great conversation. I knew it then, he was the one I was looking for.

To be continued...

They're Coming!

My father- and mother-in-law had no trouble getting their work visa this morning in the American Consulate in Brazil. We haven't talked to them yet (they should be flying back home now), but one of my husband's aunts got in touch with us via internet to tell us the good news. I'm really happy for them because this opportunity was exactly what they were hoping for, but never even dared to dream about. We should see them in May when we go to Massachusetts, we'll be with both our mothers for Mother's Day, something that happened only once before, in 1996.

My husband will be with them tomorrow, since he's flying to Brazil tonight. It's been crazy around here with the preparations for his trip, and he hasn't packed his suitcase yet, in spite of the fact that his flight is in a couple of hours. I deeply loathe the days that precede a trip, we can never plan ahead, there are always last minute things to take care of.

He's going to do the concurso or competition to get a teaching job at a public university in Brazil, and, as some of you may recall, if he passes, we've decided to go back. That's so scary!! I mean, it's been 10 years in this country and I guess no matter how ofter we have been back it'll still be a great shock to go back there to live. I try focus of the positive aspects of such a return: the great friends we and our sons have there, the possibility or building our own house in the future (this won't be possible right away because we're kind of broke right now, and it saddens us to go back in this situation), living close to my parents, and many other things. My in-laws will be here in the U.S., though, my husbands parents and two of his brothers. My two nephews (one to be born in June) - the only ones I have, my sons' only cousins...

Oh well, it's no use thinking about it this way before it happens. I'll keep you posted!

Meanwhile, it's getting warmer and I'm delighted that Spring's finally here. I may post some more pictures soon. We may even go to D.C. this weekend to see the Cherry Blossoms, since the peak is supposed to be tomorrow and they'd still be beautiful on the weekend. I'll let you know.

Cool New Enterprising Brazilian Mama

I had the BEST time at the conference this weekend, and I need to blog about it; but I want to write a nice, well thought-out post, so I'll leave it for later. For now, let me link to something, and maybe I can even "win" this competition and get the new template or look for my blog that I want so much .

So, last week I found some Brazilian (mama) bloggers (they blog in Portuguese, so I won't link to their blogs right now); BUT, one of them, Zee, just started her own business, both a store called Maria Joaninha (Joaninha means ladybug in Portuguese) that sells beautiful and unique hand-crafted objects, and a web-design place called Zee's Designs. Check them out, and maybe I'll get the "blogspot extreme makeover" as a result! :)

The Ten Commandments of Academic Writing According to My Advisor

I. Thou shall not use parenthetical remarks (“say it or leave it out”).

II. Thou shall not use exclamation marks!

III. Thou shan’t use contractions.

IV. Thou shall not overuse: colons by any means.

V. “Thou shall not quote too much – thy own voice needs to be heard.”

VI. Thou shall use commas properly (before last item in a list, after introductory and non-restrictive clauses)

VII. Thou shall use semi-colons properly (in compound sentences with no conjunction).

VIII. Thou shall not use passive voice (in English everything has to be very active : )

IX. Thou shall spell numbers 10 or less.

X. Thou shall not commit any grammatical errors, particularly not consistent, repetitive ones because thy writing is expected to be perfect, even if it is a first draft.

Some of these things are done differently when we write in Portuguese (particularly punctuation). So, even though many people have told me up to this point (10 years in the U.S.) that my English was excellent, I have to think again, it’s not. I’m just another foreigner who cannot write proper English. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

A girl's got to vent sometimes. Particularly if she's a graduate student. Even more if she's an ABD.

P.S. This post has been in the works since I received my first annotated chapter in the mail last year. I just felt that if I took all this stuff too seriously I just wouldn't be able to continue, so I tried to look at it from a slightly humorous point of view... (deep sigh)

MLA, Here I Come!

Nothing like a day after the other, today I received great news that my paper (the second abstract I submitted this year) was accepted for a panel at the MLA (Modern Language Association), the super competitive major conference in literature and languages in this country. I am thrilled.

Tomorrow morning I get to present at another major conference, but I'm a bit frazzled about this one, especially because I need to drive for over an hour to get there and back. For three days in a row. I'll be able to get together with three other students from my department, which will probably be fun. Tomorrow night I'll try to post to tell you how my presentation went.

In other news, I finally got two chapters back from my advisor in the mail, and I was not too happy with the comments. His feedback (from today and past chapters) prompted me to write another blog post, because I really needed to vent for a bit.

Oh, and before I forget, my brother accepted the job offer from China!! My parents are quite worried, but I am excited for him and my sister-in-law. I think it'll be a great experience for them. Now I have to post the other one...

Suspenseful News

Wow.
My brother, who is a forest engineer, has been looking for a new job since he defended his master's thesis last November just talked to me online (through Skype) and told me he has two job offers. One we already knew about - it's in the state of Espirito Santo (above Rio de Janeiro) in Brazil and the other...
is in China!! I'm dumbfounded. I haven't told my parents yet, they're blissfully ignorant downstairs, but as soon as I post this, I'll let them know. My mom will be totally shocked, I'm sure.

He has to respond to the first job offer (in Brazil) until 5 pm tomorrow (which is 3 pm here), that's why he got in touch with the people in China who will also officially offer him a job until then. My SIL is coming from the city of Sao Paulo where she's been working lately (they live 2 hours from the capital) so they can talk it over tonight, and they want to discuss with us as well which would be the best decision. I think they're considering going to China!!!


But wait, there's more! I was waiting to share this here (I don't know exactly why), but now is a good moment: my father and mother-in-law have been invited to come and work here in the U.S. (in the Boston area) -- this is still quite unbelievable to the whole family. Only one of my husband's brothers is in Brazil right now, the other two live here in the U.S. already, one in Texas and the other in Maryland, so this is ideal for the family. We're waiting for their visa interview, which will be next week on the 29th, I guess that's why I hadn't written about this before, I was waiting for it to be a certainty.

Now... this makes it much harder for us to decide to go back to Brasil doesn't it? More on all this later, OK?

Edited to Add: My mom started crying immediately. She can't even bear to think of the idea of having the two of children far away. Right now my brother lives ony 1 1/2 hours from her.

P.S. I have already uploaded 7 flower pictures, but I want to include 2 more before I publish the "Spring" post. (this was at 4 pm)
Editted to add: I uploaded the flower post at 7:30, but kept it with the 2 pm time so it would be below this one. Check it out!)

Happy Spring!

Either today or yesterday is/was the beginning of Spring in the Northern hemisphere. Therefore, I want to greet Spring by posting pictures of my own garden's crocuses and some flowering trees I photographed this weekend in Maryland. I also was inspired to post pictures of my crocus bulb flowers (which I planted in 2004) because of the 850 bulbs that Jody from Raising WEG planted last year and which have started to bloom as the pictures she posted in her blog show.

The yellow ones came up first. The first picture was taken on 3/1.

The other ones started blossoming soon (the second and third pictures are from 3/11).

On 3/16, after some hot days, the flowers were in full bloom, but starting to wilt, as you can see on the last crocus picture as well.

These two pictures show the crocuses on 3/11 and 3/16:

I took the pictures below this past weekend in Maryland.

We're planning to go to D.C. to see the Cherry Blossom, we've only gone once and it's beautiful, but I didn't have a digital camera yet. My uncle lives there, and we may also meet up with my brother and sister-in-law. If we go I'll certainly post pretty pictures here :)

Lovely Weekend

We had a lovely "long weekend." My husband spent last week in Baltimore at a conference and the boys and I were able to join him on Thursday night because his lab partner/roomate left early. My parents decided to stay home (even though they would be without a car) because of the cold weather and also because they could also take a break from helping us with the house and caring for the boys.

The hotel had a beautiful view of the Inner Harbor (even though our room overlooked the other side, the Northern part of the city - I forgot to take pictures of that side). The pictures here were taken from the window by the elevators in the 25th floor (the one we were staying).

We took the boys to the hotel pool on Thursday night and Friday morning, Kelvin even went into the sauna with me for a bit! Then we went out for lunch and drove to my brother and sister-in-law's house in the afternoon.
We hadn't had the opportunity to hang out since our 10 days at the beach over the holidays in Brazil, so we had a lot to talk about. It was great fun -- the boys had a blast with their cousin's toys (my nephew, who's 17 months old is only 4 months younger than Linton) and their cousin was delighted to be with his adored older cousins.

Of course the lovely weekend meant a break in dissertation work, which is not good. I haven't been working well, I get distracted very easily (even with work, but more often than not with non-dissertation related stuff, obviously) and I have just been lazy and not writing much, which makes me feel terrible. I don't have set daily goals, just weekly deadlines of things to send to the advisor every Friday, and I have been late with those for two weeks at this point. To make matters worse, he is super busy right now, and hasn't sent me back his revisions for the 2nd draft of chapter 2 which he received last month and the early draft of chapter I sent this month - this does not help at all! Well, let me stop complaining and try to get back to work. I'll be back some other time with spring flower pictures for you, OK?

Rejection

I almost forgot to blog about this, but the rejection letter from that "accidental application" arrived two weeks ago. I didn't mind it at all, never even gave it a second thought. It just wasn't meant to be. My husband (who applied to a position in the same "smallish state university") hasn't heard anything yet, but we think it's also a "no."

I had another rejection this week, for a conference paper, this one disappointed me a little, even though I wasn't too hopeful. I did send another abstract to a different panel at the same conference and I'm hoping the second one won't be rejected, even though I know there are great chances it will -- it's just too competitive to get a presenting spot at the MLA, for those of you who know what I mean. My first MLA rejection was the saddest for me, even though I knew I had no chance at all...

Sometimes I do feel bitter (particularly about the very rarefied "niche" of Luso-Brazilian studies), and think that certain events, certain publications are just like a "private club" thing (that stem from all the requirements for tenure). I am extremely bitter about several things in academia, but lately I've been so enamored of "pure research," so excited about the writers I'm analyzing for the dissertation that I have this great feeling of "yes! this is what I want to do for the rest of my life." And I totatlly mean it. I love to do scholarship for its own sake, and I plan to always research, go to conferences, publish papers, it is what I love to do, and that's why perhaps academic life is the life for me. On the other hand... I have to be realistic and not even hope too much getting a job, and I'm serious. The tenure-track job my husband applied to last year? The rejection letter said there had been 250 applicants. And it was not even a top research school or anything! The prospects are just too... words fail me now, dim? daunting? slim?

Anyway, we're also applying for a small school in California that we have a personal interest in. That might happen, which would mean lots of changes in our lives and very soon (this summer/ fall). At this point, we're just looking at every single opportunity. As you may know, my husband is "competing" (yes, it's a competition, with a written test and everything) for two jobs in Brazilian universities. The first one is in April, so he'll have to go to Brazil for a week then (and we get to pay the expenses, [sigh!]).

So many things, so many possibilities, and who know what'll happen. One thing I know, though. For "acceptance" to take place there has to be rejection first. That's why I know we're on the right track, we're trying, taking the first steps, and they won't be in vain.

My First Online Publication! - Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network

As if I weren't busy enough, I decided to accept a lovely invitation from Corey Heller to write a column for the Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network's monthly newsletter. Of course it is a wonderful opportunity to sharpen my writing skills and I am in great company, since two of the five "contributing editors" are fellow bloggers: Alice from Jabberlingual and Clo from Multi Tongue Kids.

My column is titled One Family One Language, and this month I share my own story of biligualism (well, OK, multilingualism). I hope you enjoy it! And let me know what you think in the comments...

Check out also Alice's "Multicultural Melange and Clo's Eurapsody.

PS. I'm wondering if anyone read the last post... I'm going to have to ask some fellow bloggers the template questions directlly, because I really need to know about that :)

"New Mamas on the Blog"

This must be one of the weeks I posted most often in the short and rather uneventful "life" of this blog, and I'm still not done! I guess that between the dissertation chapters, the paper abstracts, the conference and publication papers, and the blog posts, I'm really getting into the habit of writing, and that's good. I think this month will be one of the months I will write more in my life... and I want it to continue this way. I've always wanted to write, ever since I was 13 years old, but I digress...

I've been doing all kinds of things to the blog lately (besides posting tons of pictures of cakes and parties :) , I don't know if you noticed...

First, I added a Flickr badge (there on the right, above my blogroll), something I had wanted to do for a while* . Then, a Goals and To-do list (below archives, above flikr badge), and today I updated the blogroll and added the "New Mamas on the Blog" category, even though I'm planning to branch out and have more non-parent folks in my blogroll :) I will eventually move these blogs to other categories, since they already belong to one or more, but I want to add new blogs now and then, so a new blog category comes in handy. (oh yeah, some things are going wrong too, like the first post of my "Previous posts" which just looks weird - I have no idea how to fix that!)

Next, I think I may change the blog template. I love green, but I think there's a bit too much of it in this one. A template like Scrivener's (with green on the side, but the writing on white) would probably be easier to read. What do you think? For those more web savy than me out there (or those who have already changed templates) I have an important question: If I change the template, what will be lost? I haven't customized this template that much, if at all, I just added the links in the blogroll, Flickr badge, goals list, and tried to put my 100 things posts in the profile box (it didn't quite work as you can see). Anyway, is it OK to just switch templates in blogger?

After I do that then I want to have a new "masthead" (I guess that's what the part where the blog name and description go, right?) - inspired by Scrivenings again. I'll use my own pictures and present the different options to my readers to give their opinions like he did - that should be fun! One day... I hope to purchase a blog design (though I'm such a control freak that I don't know if I'll like it if I can't give a lot of input into the process - I truly wish I could do it myself!).

OK, I guess I'm really in a writing groove this week, I just don't want to stop writing. But stop I must, or nobody will ever read this :)

P.S. As for the Birth story post - it's not completely "done." I mean, there are still many things to tell, particularly about the incredibly hard first weeks, and I want to get to those sometime, but not now. It'll be a breasfeeding related post, so you know.

* Most photos are of flowers and plants, many from Brazil, 'cause I need to think through what kind of pics of me and my kids I'm willing to connect to the blog - there are several there though, if you want to take a peek.

Happy Birthday My Son!

Four years ago today, at 4:14 pm our first son was born. It was with great clarity that I received him into this world and that, directed by the doctor, I pulled him up to my chest by his armpits once I had pushed him out. I was immediately surprised by my husband’s convulsive weeping, and a bit sad that I myself did not feel like crying at all like one of those mothers crying and smiling in births shown on TV. I felt only utterly relieved that now there was no more pain (delivering the placenta was completely painless) and even though I was delighted to meet my son, I was too drained to feel any “glowing” emotions.

The Pregnancy

I always wanted to have a baby, I was the kind of little girl and teenager who would play with babies for hours on end, I just loved babies. After I met my future husband, we waited until after we finished college to get married and we knew we’d have to wait to have children, because we wanted to live abroad for a while first. After we went abroad (here to the U.S., read more here) came graduate school, then, we wanted to travel to Europe, so wait we did, for seven years. One day, 3 years into graduate school (2 for me), back in early 2000 I was taking a shower when I had a great idea – “Honey”, I screamed “since we aren’t going to the West Coast with your parents this summer, how about going to Europe? And then we can have a baby next year!!” We booked our tickets that March and went late in May for a month. It was an awesome trip, and I went off birth control pills even before we left. I knew I would likely have problems to conceive because I never had regular periods and had been diagnosed with mild PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) when I was 15 (I had yearly ultrasounds from then on, which I hated because of the full bladder requirement). Because of the aforementioned irregular periods/ cycles, I did many home pregnancy tests, but none were ever positive. In April 2001 I went for my yearly gynecological exam and mentioned my PCOS to the doctor who was very nice and gave me a referral me to the OB-GYN even though technically it hadn’t been a full year since we had started trying. I saw the other doctor in July (by then it had been1 year) who was ready to prescribe Clomid, I would just have to wait for my period to come. In August we traveled to Brazil for my brother’s wedding, and I even bought Clomid at our friend’s pharmacy. We didn’t come back to the U.S. until the first week in September and it was then that I decided to pee on a stick again (I hadn’t done so in Brazil because I was always with my parents or in-laws, and if I went into a pharmacy to get one, because they’d see it). So on Sept. 7, 2001, a Friday night, I did so, and there was a really, really bright second pink line. I first panicked then was overwhelmed with joy.

Getting seen by a doctor was another story. I had no idea of how far along I was, and that made me frantic – the first time around is usually fraught with questions and worries, and it was no different for me. First I had do an “official” urine pregnancy test at the university clinic, but I needed to schedule a doctor’s visit for that, since I needed to see a doctor for 2 minutes to be given a piece of paper with “positive” written on it, and for a referral to the OB-GYN. The appointment was for a week later, and the OB’s? Four weeks later. I was incensed! I told the OB’s secretary that I had been seen the year before for infertility – why would I need a referral? She responded that it was a different diagnosis. As if infertility and pregnancy had nothing to do with each other… On October 4 I was finally seen by a midwife (I was puzzled by that, I wanted a “doctor,” it would be years before I realized that if I had known better, and given the choice I would rather have chosen the care of a midwife throughout my pregnancies and birth – that was not to be the case because in my 3rd visit with her I was informed that the university clinic would no longer have midwives). She listened to my worries about not being able to date the pregnancy and was able to get me to do an ultrasound that very same day! I cried when we listened to the heartbeat in the Doppler and was fascinated by the ultrasound, which showed that I was already 15 weeks along! I had been pregnant for over two months and been blissfully unaware, since I didn’t have any symptoms. We ended up having 4 ultrasounds, because my son (we found out it was a boy in the second sonogram) had enlarged kidneys – but this turned out not to be a problem.

The pregnancy was great and in the seventh month we even went to London for a week, because I had a conference to attend in Belgium, that way we got to know most of Europe before we had a baby, which was one of our goals! We took the childbirth classes that the hospital offered, I took the breastfeeding class, and even though I don’t like hospitals too much we were lucky because our small hospital (in “NoHo”, MA) had a great birthing center, and the childbirth educator was a lovely woman, who said that the hospital, unlike other hospitals supported her philosophies (for more natural births). I wanted to go completely natural, but I never did a formal birth plan, mainly because I didn’t want to be frustrated if it went wrong we just scribbled some notes on the back of an envelope on our way to the hospital.

The Birth

On the night of March 8 when I was 37 weeks pregnant (my due date was March 27) I wrote in my diary at 1 a.m.:

I’d like to say that I’m fully prepared, but there’s no way to be prepared for this – birth, motherhood – responsibility for a son. . . . I need to be calm and above all to have physical and psychological strength for this birth to go well (in what little depends on me – since there are so many things that are beyond my control!). That’s why I’m not even thinking of my “birthing plan,” or “wish list” regarding what I would like to happen. I don’t want to stubbornly insist in something that may not be realized in practice (like not having an epidural [or cesarean]).

Only four hours later, at 5 a.m. I woke up to go to the bathroom and when I came back to bed my water broke! I had no bag packed to go to the hospital, we had no crib or nursery set up,and my mom had just arrived three days earlier from Brazil with the baby’s whole layette in one of her bags, but I managed to still have a whole session of photos before getting ready to go to the hospital :) (we took bi-weekly pictures of my belly since we found out about the pregnancy). The doctor even called to know whether we were on our way to the hospital or what! We got there around 9 a.m.

In spite of all my worries, I was lucky, very lucky… After I was monitored for the requisite 20-30 minutes (I was 2-3 cm dilated) I was able to go into the bathtub, where I labored in the water for several hours, with the jets on and all. Around noon I had to get out for the doctor to check me – and I did not want to get out of the water at all! I was 5 cm and I went back to the tub, where I remained until 3 p.m. with stronger and stronger contractions. It was painful to get out of there again, but when I got on the bed, I was fully dilated, yay! I pushed for 1h15, watching everything through a mirror. The funny thing was that onceI started pushing, I felt the pain practically stopped, because now it was being “useful” and I said, “Oh, this is easier than I thought it would be, it doesn’t really hurt!” Of course after a while I started getting tired of pushing, and didn’t think it was easy anymore, but the doctor joked that I shouldn’t say this to other women, they might “kill” me for thinking it is/was easy :) I was getting tired and hot, so my husband put a washcloth dipped in ice-water on my forehead (you can see it in the photo above), but eventually the baby descended and crowned, and the doctor asked me to touch his head, which felt a bit strange! As I was pushing him out, the doctor asked me to pull him up to me, and I thought that was great! My mom took pictures of everything (we were not allowed to film it), even though it’s not very “pretty.” I tore a bit, but not too much, but I didn’t feel the stitching, I was busy looking at my baby, holding him after they wrapped him. He was tiny, he weighed 5lb 13oz. (2.236 kg), but he was fine, and technically full term (after 37 weeks).

It was wonderful to give birth. Ater it was done, I felt physically very weak, but I was empowered by the fact that I did it without drugs, that I let my body do what it needed to do (with help from the hot water – I can’t say enough good things about laboring in a hot tub – I only regret not having been able to give birth in the water… among other things, but that’s another story). I think the pain made me more alert, more ready to take in that wonderful moment when I finally met him, the son I had been carrying inside me for almost 9 months, and I welcomed him with open arms, close into my heart.

Link to Wonderful Article on Open Adoption

I've been a huge fan of Dawn at This Woman's Work for almost two years now. Back when I started reading blogs, I stumbled upon her blog one Saturday night and almost stayed up all night reading the whole story of her daughter's adoption (she had just adopted her). I learned so much from her story and felt she was/is incredibly strong to be able to adopt and be so open about it.

I really admire Dawn for her openess, candor, insightfulness, elegance, and altruism among other things. I enjoy not only reading her blog, but also her comments on other's people's blogs (I often read several blogs that she reads), and I highly respect her opinion. I have been able to find several wonderful blogs through her links, and I always stand in awe of how civilized and open some of the heated and very difficult discussions in her blog have been (it's like that in Manuela's Thin Pink Line as well).

Anyway, Dawn just published an article at Salon.com titled "Open adoption, broken heart" that is beautiful and moving, to say the least. You should go read it right now!

Party Design? Ask My S-I-L!

Everyone seemed to enjoy the cake pictures post, so I decided to follow up with pictures of our party decorations. Tomorrow (oh, probably even later today, I need to link to an awesome article!) there'll be more serious reading here, OK?

If you, like Clo in her lovely comment, thought that I'm good in party decoration and design, think again. My sister-in-law is the really bright one in that department and she helped me decorate for Sunday's party as well as Linton's first birthday party last year. I'm also showing her stunning work for her son's first birthday mega-party last year below.

OK, the train party decoration was the joint late-night (OK, all night :) work of me and my hubby, who arranged the train balloons on the wall.

I made and decorated the cake (last picture in the previous post), but my SIL did the rest. She used an extra table cover (they were from Kelvin's 1st birthday) and cut "ones" on it (for hanging from the ceiling) and from it (for the wall). I thought it was a brilliant idea. The magnetic/white board in the back has the party favors - a magnetic small photo of Linton with his birthdate on it (OK, it was my idea to put it there).

Now, my nephew's party:

My SIL cut and hanged paper streamers on the wall, and the pictures of the bears and other animals on the wall (taken from her son's nursery decoration) she made and colored herself.

She also made the party favor bags herself and this yummy and cute bear cake.

The white cake with the crooked an uncentered name was my responsibility, as well as the cupcakes (those were pretty, though :)

I thought of writing a separate entry about Sunday's party, but if I don't have time, here's a picture of the cake (which I decorated with some help from a friend with the red frosting) and my SIL's great decoration ideas again.

Not only is the name not centered and the letters too thin, but the picture is not centered either (OK, I fully admit it, I am a perfectionist :)

I thought the idea of hanging the two character baloons from the ceiling was just brilliant! I would have tacked them to the wall, which wouldn't make for the great effect achieved by the "depth" of the decoration scheme. I had cut out green letters for his name, but my SIL had the idea of decorating them with red crepe paper with a great effect!

(The party theme was Veggie Tales - I don't think you have those in Europe, do you? - and since I only bought the baloons for the two main characters, Larry, the cucumber, and Bob, the tomato, the colors were red and green, very "Christmas-like.")
Note: The red and green cake "skirts" come from Brazil.

(Kids) Birthday Cakes Revisited

Last week when I was planning for my son's 4th birthday party that took place yesterday I thought it would be fun to post pictures of past birthday cakes of my sons, most of which I decorated myself (!). (Reminder: you can always click on the pictures to see them bigger)

For Kelvin's first birthday, I made the cake, but it was decorated by my friend, who has a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in, I don't know, "cooking" or "domestic arts" (from back in the 70s, it's something they don't have anymore)

My mom was here for his 2nd birthday and she made the cake and decorated it just like every birthday cake I ever had - covered with coconut. I made and decorated the cupcakes. The little "candy balls" in the front are typical Brazilian party sweets.

My son loves trains, so last year I took my first foray into frosting cakes, and I went all out, making this train cake I saw in a cake decorating booklet. My husband and I stayed up until 4 am frosting rectangular shaped pieces of cake - which we then threw out after the party because we didn't want anyone to eat the unhealthy food coloring. It was fun, and I think it looked great - it was definitely worth the effort, so check it out from manyy angles!


When Linton turned one I decided to use the same stuff I had saved from Kelvin's first birthday (I LOVE this "acqua" green, and it's also the color we painted Kelvin's nursery when he was born). It doesn't look bad, does it?

I'll let you know more about yesterday's party in another post. It turned out great, everyone came and we had a crowd (17 kids and 15 adults), but everyone enjoyed themselves, particularly the kids.